Best way to crop your images would be to crop them in Photoshop or whatever image editor you use. You will have to do each one individually to achieve best results. In Photoshop, set the crop size to a ratio of 4:3 and crop each image so as to give the best results.I have used this method to do the opposite, that is to say, cropping images to 16:9. You can check out the "Aspect Ratio" function in Videomeld, but read the help page first.

In the section with the video, add the Aspect Ratio Correction (if not already there) and Crop/Pan/Zoom effects, and play with them till you get the result you desire. You can do letterbox, stretch to fill screen, crop to fit the screen, or anything in between. The crop/pan/zoom can be static, or you can vary it to follow the action.

Then save the result as a 4:3 video. Custom 1440x1080 if the original was 1920x1080.

All that settings to 4x3 seems to do is squish (top too close to bottom) the video. I'm not seeing a 4x3 ratio cropping in the preview window. The output video is not a cropped 4x3 portion of the inputted video - it's a squeezed (left side too close to right side) and distorted image and the ratio is not 4x3 it looks more like 4x2-1/2.

It's kind of hard to explain what I want to do and we can't post images here to simulate my request. It seems to me that this would be be an easy and often used function - select a 4x3 ratio portion of a 16x9 video and save it as a new video without distorting the image ratios.

Add crop/pan/zoom effect. Be sure it's proportional (this will maintain 4:3). Mode at bottom can be proportional or stretched, not centered. Uncheck the crop/pan/zoom effect. Adjust the crop/pan/zoom effects boundary to select the 4:3 area you want to crop from the 16:9 source. When you have outlined the crop you want, activate the crop/pan/zoom effect by checking it, and see the preview.